


And If I Fail

by RogueWolf



Series: Avenging Drabbles and Oneshots [5]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Angst, Gen, Tony Stark Feels, Tony is having a bad day, broken tony
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-25
Updated: 2015-08-25
Packaged: 2018-04-17 05:23:37
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,182
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4653945
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RogueWolf/pseuds/RogueWolf
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Everybody has bad days. That's why it's important to have someone to catch you. But when Tony Stark has a bad day, there's nobody there to catch him</p>
            </blockquote>





	And If I Fail

Bad days happen to everyone; people cope by sleeping or reading a book or going to the gym and beating the living hell out of a punching bag. Or, you’d have someone with you, someone to stay with you and help you feel less alone, more human, loved. If you were Tony Stark, however, you waited until all your fellow Avengers were away from the tower and close down your workshop with the highest security setting you had, and then proceed to drink your way through all the alcohol you own.

 _It hadn’t been the worst of days he’d had,_ Tony thought hazily, but it definitely ranked up there. He groped for another bottle of vodka, frowning when all he hit was empty bottles that clattered and rolled away into the darker corners of the workshop. His fingers finally touched something that felt cool and heavy, and he heard himself give a tiny giggle. Yay for not moving.

He fumbled to get the bottle open and finally smashed the bottle neck against the floor, wrinkling his nose as the alcohol gushed out of the broken bottle and soaked his pants. “Oooook…that wasn’t a smart idea…Jarvis, remind me not to do that next time.”

There was no reply.

“Jarvis?” Tony stared up into the dark. “Come on buddy, I’m not going to remember this myself.” He frowned then, “Ooooh, yeah…you are off!”

He waved the broken bottle in the air wildly, ignoring the drops of vodka that splashed his face. “That’s right, no more stupid calls from Captain What’s His Face.” He shoved himself to his feet, wavering unsteadily for a few moments, gripping the workstation tightly with one hand. “ **Answer your phone** ,” he boomed, making his voice sound deeper than what it was. “ **Open the door**.” He threw the bottle at the adamantium plating covering his workshop door. “You open the door, you icestick.” The bottle crashed, and Tony smiled gleefully.

He meandered over to his suits, their arc reactors the only source of light in the entire room. There was a stool nearby, and he slumped down onto it, only then realizing that he had been trailing blood behind him. Tony blinked, and then looked down at his feet. There were shards of glass sticking out of them from where he had stepped through the mess of broken bottle. _Bottles_ his mind told him, but Tony waved it off. He was a genius. He knew the difference between a single bottle and multiples.

He plucked at the glass shards, cursing softly when they sliced deeper, until he had them all, or mostly all, out. He made sure to move his feet away from them this time and then he plunked his elbows on his knees and his chin on his hands and stared up at the suits. They stared back, silent and motionless.

“You guys are the best at conversation,” he told them. “Dad would have loved you. I mean, you already got the whole ‘seen but not be heard yet still making a statement’ thing down. I just had the ‘seen and making a statement' thing. Wrecked a lot of his plans with that.” He leaned forward until his forehead thumped against the glass case. “Might be why he got rid of me. Can’t have the kid showing up the big guy.”

The suits didn’t say anything back, and Tony felt anger bubbling up inside of him. What did he expect? For them to be smart enough to answer? They were pieces of metal, it’s not like they could think; it’s not like they were **human**.

He shoved himself away from the case violently, standing up and staggering at the abrupt motion. He glared at the suits, at the workshop, at You and Dummy and Butterfingers clustered in a corner, powered down for once, and just as still as the suits. His breathing sped up, until it was suddenly all he could hear in the dark room.

He screamed, the sound echoing and bouncing off the walls. He took a deep breath and clenched his fists, before throwing back his head and screaming again, even louder. His voice broke mid-scream and he gasped for air, coughing and choking. He scrabbled at his throat and chest, and then almost seemed to cave in on himself when he got a full breath.

The room was silent again, and in the silence Tony could hear people pounding on the walls and doors. He laughed, but it was higher than normal. “They’re adamantium, idiots,” he called, “Now leave me alone.”

The pounding stopped for a minute and Tony could hear people yelling for him. He tuned them out and staggered over to the corner cabinet. He was certain there was probably some tequila left in it.

He made it halfway through the tequila bottle before he started throwing up, throat burning as he coughed and gagged up the alcohol in his system. He collapsed on the floor, avoiding the mess he'd made, and closed his eyes, feeling them burn and sting behind his eyelids. He sniffed, and then curled in on himself, covering his face with his hands. He ground the heels of his palms into his eyes, but they still burned, and he could still think; he didn’t want to think. He rolled over and reached for the tequila bottle again.

* * *

 

The sky was burning above him. Tony cried out, and threw an arm across his face, blocking the light. The murmur of voices in the background froze, and then he heard squeals as people shoved back chairs. There was a click and the room was dimmer, the light around his arm blue-gray instead of orangey-red.

Tony cautiously lowered his arm and blinked at the people surrounding him. Pepper, Rhodey, and Steve were glaring at him. Peppers eyes were red rimmed, and Tony thought dazedly how odd it was for her to not look pristine. Rhodey didn’t look much better, but it was Steve who put them all to shame. He was looking at Tony as if he had never seen him before, as if he was finally realizing that Tony wasn’t worth his effort or time, as if everything he’d done up to now had been a mistake.

Tony closed his eyes again. “Leave me alone,” he rasped. His throat felt funny, as if someone had rubbed it raw.

“I don’t think so,” Pepper snapped. He could feel her shaking from where she was pressed up against the bed. “Do you have any idea how worried we’ve been? They had to pump your stomach, Tony! They didn’t think you’d make it.”

Tony scoffed. “It was just a few bottles, Pep, I was fine.”

“You idiot!” she seethed. “Your blood alcohol concentration was .36! You could have **died**!”

“Oh,” Tony said simply. “I guess that would be bad.”

“You guess? You GUESS?!” Pepper’s face had darkened. “I was fine with you being Iron Man, Tony. I was proud that you were out there, helping to save the world. But this?” she slammed a hand down on the metal medical wheelie table and Tony flinched. “This is you destroying yourself for no reason, and I can’t take that!” She started crying, and Tony flinched again.

“Pepper, don’t cry, I just…” he reached out to her but she moved away, pressing herself against Rhodey who wrapped an arm around her. He nodded at Steve and steered Pepper out, whispering softly to her. Tony watched them leave, his chest aching, and then looked at Steve.

Steve stared back, and the silence grew and grew, until Tony felt like all he had known was silence. He cleared his throat and the sound was explosive, as if a bomb had gone off in his hospital room. “How did you guys manage to get in? I didn’t think you’d be able to take down the plating.”

Steve’s eyes were cold. “You’re right, we couldn’t. Luckily, we happen to know someone who’s good with computers.”

Tony frowned. “Are you saying someone hacked my system?”

Steve nodded once. “Someones. Natasha was able to patch Darcy through to your system, and together they were able to bring Jarvis back online and undo the security lockdown.”

Steve glanced down, and Tony followed his gaze to see Steve’s hands clutched so tightly around the end of the bed frame that the metal was being to warp. “Why’d you do it, Tony?” he asked softly. He looked back up and Tony felt his mouth dry up at those blue eyes pinning him down. “Why?”

Tony looked away, shifting uncomfortably. He was tired, deathly tired, and he just wanted to be left alone. “I don’t know,” he said at last.

Steve made a low noise in his throat. “I can’t accept that. I know you, you’re too smart to do something like this without thinking it through. So why?”

He was too close, Tony though frantically. Too close, too close, too close… “You want to know why?” he heard himself blurt out. “Because I’m tired of all this. I’m tired of being the genius, the guy who sees the end of what we know and instead of helping fix it, I break it. Everything I have done, every time I tried to help I make it worse.”

He jerked an arm out from the covers and pointed at the window. “There used to be a lot more skyline there, and you know why there isn’t? Because **dear old dad** had to go searching for you and instead found a glowing blue rock that destroyed my city.”

He glared at Steve, who stared back, shocked. “I have nightmares of not being able to breathe, of falling, of being useless because he cared more for you than he did for me. You know what he didn’t do when he was searching for you? Spending time with me. He spent a fortune on making sure that I went to the best schools, met the right people, wore the right clothes, but he spent several more fortunes trying to find you, his precious captain.”

Tony stopped talking, his chest heaving, his throat burning, and he wished desperately for a glass of water. Steve said nothing, just continued to stare, but Tony could see the tear tracks on his cheeks, they way his eyes were brighter than normal. He looked away, unable to look at Steve any longer.

“I am tired,” Tony whispered, “of constantly failing. I am Iron Man, but what else am I? I’m a failed son, a failed friend, a failed everything. And I’m tired of it.”

Tony fell silent again, tracing patterns across the linoleum floor with his eyes. Steve stood at the end of the bed and Tony could hear him struggling not to cry, to control himself. It made him feel cold, as if he’d said something wrong, but that wouldn’t be surprising. He said the wrong things all the time.

“Tony,” Steve said, and his voice was hoarse, his tears evident. Tony glanced up and then away again; he didn’t want to have to look at the anguish written across Steve’s face.

“Tony,” Steve said again, and Tony heard him move. He refused to watch, refused to take his eyes off the ground, so it was a surprise when he felt Steve slide into the bed against him. He could barely fit his whole self onto it, but he managed.

He wrapped an arm around Tony gingerly and then tugged. Tony let Steve pull him, too weary to care anymore. He ended up with his head pressed against Steve’s chest, Steve having tugged at Tony until he was sitting in the captain’s lap. Steve had wrapped his arms around Tony, holding him tightly, and one large hand began to brush its way through Tony’s hair.

Tony blinked rapidly. _What was going on?_

“I’m sorry,” Steve whispered. “I’m sorry your father treated you like that. I’m sorry you weren’t able to be a child. But you weren’t a failed son. How can you be, when you weren’t even given the chance to be one?”

Tony shook his head, felt his body tremble. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“But I do,” Steve said. “I knew Howard, remember? I knew what he was like when he was wrapped up in his projects, when he came up with a new idea. And that’s how I can say that I know you didn’t fail as a son. Howard failed as a father.”

Tony started to shake harder, and Steve held him closer, made calming noises. “No…” Tony gasped out. “It was me. If I had just…been better, been smarter, I could have…He would have.”

“Tony,” Steve said sternly, “listen to me. This is not your fault. Howard acting the way he did was not your fault.” _His eyes were leaking,_ Tony realized. And then he was sobbing, sobs that wracked his whole body and made him heave for air. And through it all, Steve hugged him, held him, whispered nonsense to him, and Tony could feel Steve’s tears dripping on his arm.

**Author's Note:**

> *hands out tissues*
> 
> There are times when I feel very strongly about Tony and how broken he is.  
> If it helps, my next story is a fluffy burrito Bucky. 
> 
> And hey, thank you all for reading. Your comments and kudos mean a lot to me.


End file.
